


Fallen

by Branithar



Series: Short Fics [6]
Category: As It Is (Band)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, M/M, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 16:06:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19444876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Branithar/pseuds/Branithar
Summary: A beautiful summer day is overturned by disaster.





	Fallen

“God, it’s so pretty this time of year,” Patty breathed, gazing up at the massive trees around them.

Ronnie threaded his fingers through Patty’s, almost as enchanted by the summer forest as he was by Patty’s wonder-struck expression. Sensing his stare, Patty flashed him a grin.

Ronnie couldn’t help but blush and look down, a bashful smile playing at his own lips. He vaguely wondered if he'd ever build up a resistance to Patty's flustering smiles.

“Shall we head down to the river?” Ben suggested, stretching his arms and wings up with a grunt. 

“God yes!” Foley agreed, “If I have to go another hour in this heat I’ll die.”

“You do know there are swimming pools at home, right?” Ali teased as Ben led the way. 

“It’s not the same,” Foley replied, “Swimming pool water makes me feel sticky. And they get crowded in summer anyway.”

“Oh, too good to hang out with commoners, are you?” Patty laughed. 

“Maybe.”

“Everyone shut up,” Ben hissed, freezing in place. 

Ronnie glanced around, the others looking as surprised as he was. “What’s wrong?” 

“ _Shh_.” He shooed them away, not sparing a backward glance. “Everyone get back.”

Through the trees, Ronnie glimpsed what Ben was looking at. A giant crouched by the river just ahead of them. Thankfully, it was facing away from them and apparently hadn’t noticed their chatter as they’d approached. Giants were peaceful for the most part, but such large creatures couldn’t help but be dangerous when they were curious, and avians made them _very_ curious. 

They crept a few paces back the way they’d come before leaping into the trees, their wings carrying them from branch to branch until they were high enough to take off. 

“We’ll have to let people know when we get back!” Ali shouted, “So that no one accidentally runs into it like we did! _Shit!_ ”

Another giant rose up from where it had been hidden among the greenery, spotting them immediately. It reached up to them, but an easy beat of his wings took Ronnie well out of its grasp.

He wondered what they were doing out here, so far from the plains they usually stuck to. As it was hard for them to move around among so many trees they rarely ventured into forests. Maybe something had driven them in-

A sickening crack followed by an agonised scream pierced the air. Ronnie looked back and, horrified, saw that the second giant had caught Patty. It yanked him out of the air, crushing his wing as it held him close to its face to examine him.

Ben and Ali immediately turned around to attack the giant, swooping at it as Patty struggled. When it looked away to swipe at them with its free hand, Ronnie took the opportunity to dive down, landing beside Patty on its wrist. 

“Ronnie, you have to get out of here,” Patty gasped, tears streaming down his face. 

“Fuck that,” Ronnie replied, pulling at the giant’s thumb. He tried not to scream in frustration when it didn’t budge. 

“Below!”

They looked up just in time to see Foley drop a small boulder. It cracked against the giant’s skull, only making it roar in anger. It loosened its fist to swat at the others, allowing Patty to slip out. 

Ronnie tried not to look at Patty’s wing as he held him tightly, kicking off into the sky and flapping out of the giant’s reach. 

The wing was far too damaged to fly with and Ronnie couldn’t carry him alone. For all his desperate fluttering, they didn’t make it far before falling below the treetops, branches tearing at Ronnie’s wings and face as he steered them towards a clearing upriver. 

They broke through the tree line just as they lost their grip on each other, spiralling downward and separating. They hit the ground hard and rolled, Patty coming to a rest a short distance from Ronnie. 

Though he was dazed, Ronnie ignored his scrapes and grazes and the blood dripping into his eye, crawling over to Patty’s still form. His wing was grotesque, twisted horribly out of shape, dark blood seeping between mangled gold feathers. 

Ronnie put two fingertips to his neck, relieved when he felt a pulse. 

“Foley?” Ronnie sat up, searching the sky. 

Between the treetops he could see the others diving and swooping at the giant, trying to lure it away from Ronnie and Patty’s crash site. 

“ _Foley!_ ” he screamed again. 

Foley spotted them and dove, hitting the ground with a controlled roll much smoother than Ronnie and Patty’s had been. He rose slowly, horror in his eyes. 

“Can you carry him?” Ronnie pleaded. 

Foley hesitated. “His wing needs to be bandaged.”

“Do you _have_ any fucking-” Ronnie bit his lip and looked down, taking a breath before continuing. “We don’t have time for that. Can you carry him on your own or not?”

Foley gave a conflicted nod. 

Patty didn’t stir as they manoeuvred his body so that Foley could cradle him. Holding Patty forced Foley to fly at an odd angle, but with several hard beats of his wings he made it off the ground. 

Ronnie stayed close, scanning the trees around them for more giants as Foley rose. No more appeared, though the first had come over to watch Ali and Ben hassle the second giant. 

Ali and Ben saw them escaping and left the giant alone, silently taking the lead so Foley could fly in their updraft. 

The red stain on Patty’s wing continued to grow, droplets steadily falling into the trees below.

o}█{o

Patty stared out the window, his expression unreadable. Bandaids and stitches littered his face and arms where branches had scratched at him when they’d fallen. With one terrible exception, Ronnie was in a similar state.

“Your feathers will take time to grow back as well,” the doctor said. 

She was giving them a rundown of Patty’s condition. It had been hard to listen when she’d listed how many things could still go wrong at this point, even after the agonisingly long surgery. Broken bones were just the tip of the iceberg.

“You shouldn’t expect them to be usable for at least a year, but the upside is that it’ll give everything else time to heal.” 

Patty’s damaged wing now laid outstretched in slings hanging from an arm attached to the gurney, splints and bandages holding it in shape. Countless broken feathers had been removed, leaving it thin and frail-looking. 

“It’s much too soon to know how much movement you’ll recover,” she continued, “As I explained, these kinds of things tend to be a bit of a die-roll. The moment we know more we can start looking at your options for mobility aids or...prosthetics.”

A knife twisted in Ronnie’s gut. Patty couldn’t lose his ability to fly. He _couldn’t_.

Ben took Patty’s hand, careful not to jostle the PIV. “You don’t know anything for certain though, right?”

The doctor nodded. “There’s definitely a possibility that you’ll make a full recovery. You’re in great health, if you rest your wing and eat right I’m sure we can afford to be optimistic.”

Patty remained silent, but Ronnie knew him well enough to tell when he was holding back tears. 

He took his other hand, looking up at the doctor. “Can we have a minute?”

She gave a sympathetic nod and left, quietly closing the door behind her. 

“It’s okay,” Ronnie murmured, “We get it, nobody’s judging you.”

Just like that, Patty broke down into sobs.

o}█{o

“Can your therapist prescribe something to help you sleep?” Ronnie asked softly.

“Maybe.” Patty curled into Ronnie’s arms, “It’s just that...I don’t wanna sleep.”

Ronnie looked down at him. In the darkness and without his glasses, he couldn’t make out Patty’s expression, but he sounded apologetic. He caressed his cheek. “You need to. So you can heal.” 

“I know, but…” Patty held Ronnie tighter. “The nightmares…”

He’d told Ronnie about them when the hospital had finally released him. It broke Ronnie’s heart every time Patty apologised through tears for waking him up with his restless tossing or muffled screaming. Ronnie was just grateful to be there for him in those moments. It sickened him to think of Patty waking up scared and alone all those nights at the hospital, only to put on a smile and act like he was fine when they came in to visit him. 

He pulled Patty close. “I know.”

o}█{o

“These are definitely coming out fast,” Ronnie commented, stroking the damp feathers on Patty’s wing. Some of the new ones were half a foot long already. 

“You think so?” Patty was preening the underside of his good wing, occasionally pulling an old feather free and letting it fall to the bathroom floor. 

“Yeah. Your wing definitely looks a lot better now.” 

Patty bristled the feathers on his back as Ronnie moved on from the wing, letting him clean between them. “I just hope I’ll be able to use it,” he murmured, “I still can’t move it enough to clean it myself.” 

“It still has a lot of healing to do. Muscle mass to get back too," Ronnie offered, "Also, I was looking up athletes with wing conditions the other day. There are these specialised mobility aids they use so they can fly fast without moving as much. There are some designed for gymnasts too. If it takes a long time to get back to normal, you could look into something like that.” 

“I’ve heard of those. I’m not much of an Olympian, though.” 

Ronnie shrugged. “That doesn’t matter. Even if you’re not the fastest, at least you’ll be moving around on your own again.”

“Yeah,” Patty sighed.

Ronnie knew that he missed their old hangouts. Before Patty’s injury, he’d never thought about how long it took to walk everywhere or how simply inaccessible some places were without flying. 

The others helped out where they could. Movie nights were held almost exclusively at Ronnie and Patty’s flat now. When they went out together, Foley offered to carry Patty bridal-style everywhere, even if they were just walking across the street. It didn't totally ease his depression, but it made Patty laugh, at least. 

When Patty’s feathers were clean they switched places to preen Ronnie’s. Ronnie watched red join the gold on the floor, the feathers slowly piling up as they worked. 

“I’m glad you’re still here,” Ronnie said before he could stop himself. 

“Hm?”

“Sorry, I just...I was thinking about how much worse it could’ve been.” He looked back at Patty. “You could’ve died…” Turning away to hide the tears threatening the edges of his vision, he went back to staring at the feathers on the floor. “You nearly did.” 

They were silent for a moment. 

“I guess it was pretty close,” Patty finally said as he went back to preening Ronnie’s wing, “Good thing you guys were there.” 

“Yeah. I know you feel like you’re a burden sometimes, but you’re not. If I lost you, I-” He stopped himself, not trusting his voice to stay level. 

He was surprised to feel Patty’s lips on his shoulder. 

“I’m glad I’m still here with you too.”


End file.
